WITFOR 2016

WITFOR investigates successful ICT strategies in developing countries and examines different initiatives and projects on effective, context sensitive development and use of ICT applications. It is intended to:

• Help to put ICT-enabled development initiatives on the agenda of different organizations, governmental bodies, and groups currently involved in ICT.
• Work with different groups to ensure that senior policy makers and political leaders are aware of the developmental potential of ICT and promote its diffusion and sustainable effective use.
• Assist international organizations and donor agencies to include issues of the spread of ICT and access to information into their loan and funding programs and be more pro-active in using new technologies to reduce existing social tensions and conflicts.
• Encourage scholars, analysts and researchers to put the issue of digital equity higher on their research agendas.
• Encourage industrialized nations, as individuals and groups, to listen to and learn from colleagues around the world about their unique concerns over access to ICT.
• Develop guidelines on these issues and advise governments, to formulate and follow the best strategy for the use of ICT in order to achieve global ICT-equity.

WITFOR 2016 will be held in San José, Costa Rica, in collaboration with the Costa Rican Public Universities, under the overarching theme of ICT for Promoting Human Development and Protecting the Environment.

In particular, WITFOR 2016 intends to bring together members of the ICT community from governments, academia, industry and associations, to discuss recent proposals aimed to reach the sustainable development goals, promoted by the United Nations, in order to improve global conditions by reducing poverty and hunger, achieving universal education, promoting gender equality, ensuring environmental sustainability, combating diseases, and reducing mortality.

The conference goals will be pursued through technical sessions as well as keynote speeches on important topics. The technical sessions will refer to the following main areas:

ICT and cross-cutting development issues, involving human, environmental and economic development problems

• ICT and climate change
• ICT and sustainable energy
• ICT and employment
• Digital divide
• E-government
• E-readiness and ICT impact
• Smart cities

ICT and human development problems

• ICT and poverty
• ICT and food security
• ICT and health
• ICT and education
• ICT and gender
• ICT and conflict resolution/human rights
• ICT and human settlements
• ICT role on enhancing human capabilities

ICT and environmental problems

• ICT and water, including sanitation
• ICT and sustainable production and consumption
• ICT and sustainable use of oceans, seas and marine resources
• ICT and biodiversity
• ICT and the combat of desertification
• ICT and the prevention/management of natural disasters

ICT and economic development problems

• ICT and sustainable economic growth
• ICT sector and economic growth
• ICT and infrastructure and industrialization
• ICT and innovation

We welcome academic contributions as well as practical solutions and examples related to the areas described above. Particularly, we encourage full and short papers using a variety of approaches or perspectives (human, environmental, and economic) to address pressing sustainable problems. Full papers should present completed projects or initiatives and can have 10 to 12 pages (2 additional pages are possible at an additional cost). Short papers can be used to present on-going or proposed projects, and should have 5 to 7 pages (1 additional page is possible at and additional cost).

Submissions will go through the normal reviewing process associated with a quality symposium, that is, each paper will be reviewed by at least three Programme Committee Members. . Criteria for acceptance for papers are its originality, relevance, and quality. Accepted papers will appear in the conference proceedings published by Springer-Verlag as a volume of the IFIP Series Advances in Information and Communication Technology (AICT).

Submission details for full and short papers can be found at http://www.witfor2016.org/submission.html.

To complement the papers to be presented during the technical sessions, we are also looking for demonstrations of pilot/sample projects in different stages (completed, halfway, just started, proposed), case studies, technical recommendations, experiences, policies, initiatives and best practices regarding innovative ICT applications promoting human development and/or protecting the environment, in the same areas proposed for the papers. These presentations do not require an associated paper and will not be published in the proceedings.

Proposals for demonstrations (two pages maximum), describing the ICT application and its context, should be submitted for evaluation. Criteria for acceptance of demonstrations include the relevance and innovation of the application, as well as its impact.

Submission details for demonstrations can be found at http://www.witfor2016.org/submission.html.